


don't set me free, i'm as heavy as can be

by anacruses



Category: Kolchak: The Night Stalker
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-05
Updated: 2016-09-05
Packaged: 2018-08-13 03:38:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7960987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anacruses/pseuds/anacruses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Listen--<br/>Carl Kolchak is a man against entropy."</p>
            </blockquote>





	don't set me free, i'm as heavy as can be

Listen--

Carl Kolchak is a man against entropy.

Entropy that takes different forms, mind you; vampires, werewolves, ancient Aztec cults. (Oh my.) Entropy in various dark, twisted, macabre, unbelievable guises, but entropy nonetheless. And the thing about fighting entropy is that it requires energy.

Right now, Carl Kolchak has none.

He is about as tired as he can be without actually being asleep. Tired doesn’t fully describe it, though--he’s _exhausted_ , deep in his bones. Fatigued to his very core. Totally and completely worn out. Empty.

So much of his life is spent in motion--running, to the office from the office to the library to the police station to find a witness for his life--that when it catches up with him, it catches up _hard_ , and that’s part of the reason that he’s currently slumped in his desk chair, tape recorder in his hand and long since neglected, hat still askew on his head. Blood dries on his jacket, dripping from the long scratches that cross his face and that he’s already nearly forgotten. The room is lit in soft orange from the streetlights outside, and rain patters softly against the window. He’s zoned out, dozing off, staring into space and letting his thoughts settle.

Kolchak thinks about going home, then considers the effort required; convincing his stiff, aching muscles to expend the energy necessary to move, first of all, then leaving the office, walking to his car, weaving through the ever-annoying Chicago traffic, actually getting up the steps to his apartment, then--well, probably passing out right there in the entryway. Then he thinks about staying here, sleeping at his desk, letting entropy and apathy consume him for just one night. The thought is tempting, he’s nearly asleep as it is, but Vincenzo wouldn’t like it--he never does, when he finds Kolchak passed out next to his typewriter in the morning--and the thought of dealing with an angry Tony Vincenzo in less than six hours just exhausts him even further.

The thought of dealing with _anything_ exhausts him right now, really.

A headache is beginning to throb just behind his eyes, now. He slumps down a little more into his chair, letting the tape recorder fall to his desk with a solid _thud_. He doesn’t want to deal with this anymore. He _doesn’t want to deal with this anymore_. Why does he _have_ to, anyway? Why is this his job, his duty, his pseudo-sacred vow?

 _Because_ , a small voice pipes up in the back of his thoughts. _You never could keep your mouth shut_.

Never could keep his mouth shut, indeed. If there’s one thing Kolchak can’t stand, it’s injustice. He faces it down every day, and fights back tooth and nail. The dead can’t speak (usually), so he has to be their voice. He has to be their revenge. It’s not facts that he’s concerned with, he has to expose **The Truth**.

It’s a thankless job, to be sure. And it’s gotten him _nowhere_. His credibility as a reporter is shot, his coworkers think he’s a lunatic, the police regard him as a nuisance at best and dangerous at worst, and it seems like every time he turns around there’s a new threat to be faced, a new evil to be defeated, a new corpse staring him in the eye.

And now he’s alone in a dark newsroom, licking his various literal and metaphorical wounds and trying to figure out what comes next.

Tonight, it was a Wendigo. It had slashed him repeatedly with its long, jagged claws before he was finally able to set it aflame. It stank like rot and death and screamed as it died. Last week, a kallikantzaros, which had killed three more victims and evaded him twice before he could catch it; on one of those occasions, he had been thrown into a wall hard enough to knock him out, and awoken some time later with a broken camera, ruined film, and what he figured was a nasty concussion. Two days after Christmas, that was, and Carl Kolchak had spent it in a back alley in the slums of Chicago, clothes soaked through with rain and snow, blood gushing from his head. In the years he’s been doing--well, whatever it is that he does--he’s been beaten, cut, burned, shot at, tossed around like a ragdoll, and generally abused. It’s nothing short of a miracle (or just pure dumb luck) that he isn’t dead by now.

He needs--

He needs--

What does he need?

A hot shower, a change of clothes, a stiff drink. A _very_ stiff drink. And a very long sleep.

And he needs someone to listen, to _hear_ him for once. He just needs someone to understand, before he loses his mind completely. Unless he’s lost it already, which seems more and more likely by the day.

Well, fuck. Maybe he _is_ crazy, maybe he went round the bend years ago. It’s the most _logical_ explanation--much more logical, indeed, than that the world is full of ugly, evil, impossible, unimaginable things, things that wait in the darkness and grab you when you’re least expecting it. Things that do not--that _can_ not--exist in this modern world of science and reason and bureaucracy. Real life nightmares. Children’s ghost stories. Make-believe.

Yeah, right.

All _logic_ goes flying out the window when those nightmares grip you around the ankle and refuse to let go. _Logic_ doesn’t save innocent lives from creatures whose very existence defy it. And where’s _logic_ when Kolchak wakes up in the middle of the night with Janos Skorzeny’s breath cold and putrid against his throat, his fangs just a hairsbreadth away from the blood pounding through his arteries?

(Those are the nights Kolchak wakes up paralyzed, a sob caught in his throat, heart racing and cold sweat pouring down his skin. Those are the nights he turns on the TV and all the lights and gets more than a little drunk until the sun comes up, clutching a wooden stake all the while--terrified that if he tries to fall asleep again, he’ll feel Skorzeny sinking his fangs into the tender flesh of his throat, and know that it’s all over.)

So, fuck logic. Logic didn’t burn the Wendigo alive, and logic didn’t save the girl it was on the verge of disemboweling. He did that--poor, crazy, delusional Carl Kolchak, an embarrassment to modern journalism and a blight upon Chicago’s _spotless_ landscape. And nobody would ever even know about it--let alone believe him if they did.

God, he’s so _tired_.

Kolchak sighs, rubs his face, stretches his aching legs out in front of him. Maybe he’s done. Maybe he should let the world continue on its natural course, should let it keep rolling into its own destruction. Maybe fighting against the way things are is like swimming against a riptide, like resisting inertia, like trying to stop the inevitable heat death of the universe.

He can’t save the world. He can barely _change_ it. For every life that he saves, there’s another five, ten, a hundred that he can’t. Soon, his life will catch up to him, and he’ll end up dead in a ditch somewhere, and if anyone actually shows up to his funeral, the only thing they’ll say is, “We all knew it was coming, that dumb sunovabitch.” So what’s the goddamn point?

 _That’s bullshit and you know it_ , the voice pipes up again.

And he does, he does, deep down he does. As quickly as his bitter discouragement overwhelms him, it passes. Never once has he seriously considered that he’s on the wrong side, or that the world is better off without him--but damn if things don’t wear him down after a while. There is no end goal in sight, no finish line that he can cross, no way this war will be won in his lifetime. All he can do for now is, 1) stay alive, and 2) keep going. Always keep going. Stop, and entropy will eat him alive.

 _Tomorrow_ , Kolchak tells himself, stifling a yawn. Tomorrow. The world will still be turning, Vincenzo will be yelling at him about something new, and Kolchak will have an entirely different demon to face down. Tomorrow. But for now--

It’s raining, he’s tired, every single part of him hurts. Maybe he’ll sleep for three straight days, maybe he’ll drink until he just doesn’t care anymore. Either way— 

He’s going home.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> i recently got into kolchak: the night stalker and it struck me--kolchak has got to be absolutely, utterly _miserable._ i mean, think about it: you're basically the only person who actually notices all these supernatural happenings, you deal with mangled corpses on a daily basis, all your coworkers think you're a damn nutcase, and the police  & government are always just half a step ahead of you and make sure nothing you experience sees the light of day.  
> poor guy. nice hat, though.


End file.
